SHORT STORY

 Yesterday I sat down to write something here since it has been a long time since I felt like adding to my blog. I typed a bit and then evidently hit the wrong key because it all disappeared. It probably wasn't any good anyway. So here goes another try.

As I have mentioned before, I was born and raised in a small town about 50 miles north of Corpus Christi near the Gulf Coast. It was a nice little town and had a lot of interesting characters in it. There was one hotel downtown which boasted three stories, a coffee shop and a beauty parlor. It was owned by a lady whose husband was a drunk and he used to sit in his chauffeured car in front of the hotel and hiss at people entering, saying, "You don't wanna stay there". He was largely ignored. His charming wife ran the hotel aided by her son. Normally I don't put people's real names here but in order to make this story work, I must say that his name was "Choppy". His mother felt that he should have four full meals a day and should take a nap after each one; thus the nickname. One time my husband and I went bird hunting with Choppy and his wife and he brought two camp stools to sit on, one for each of his large buttocks. He also brought a case of beer. We set up beside a tank (which in South Texas is a man made pond) and waited for doves to fly by. Finally a flock of doves flew over and he started shooting and got a couple. Now, I must explain here that he didn't have a birddog to retrieve them. No, he had a young Mexican boy for that so the poor kid started out to pick up the birds when another flock flew over. Never mind that the boy was across the tank when the birds flew low over it. Choppy started shooting and the kid had to hit the ground. By this time, my husband and I were disenchanted with this so we moved a bit further away; also because Choppy was about halfway through the case of beer after we had been there only a short time. Needless to say, we didn't enjoy that outing.

Although I may have made it sound otherwise, Choppy was very charming and used to throw great parties at the hotel. He didn't drink or eat though because if he had he would have needed a nap right after and he didn't want to leave his guests. He met his demise in an unusual and tragic way. They were adding something onto the back of the hotel and he leaned off the balcony to watch, lost his balance and fell onto the cement mixer. It was a loss for many of us.